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Wednesday, August 13, 2008

SIA Again

I seem to be fixated on painting flowers sitting in glass vases this week...

So it's back to the beautiful Parisien flower shop, SIA...SIAis a chain of home shops founded by Sonja Ingegerd Andersson in 1963 in Sweden. Now their main offices are in France. I bought these, thinking mistakenly they were cabbage roses... When in fact they were peonies - here are the roses. I didn't buy these :( A good reason to return to SIA (quite near the Madeleine) :)Did I mention these are all SILK flowers?

Perhaps the most realistic you can find in Paris or anywhere... Were you fooled? SIA also sells an array of beautiful glass vases. Though none small enough for the single buds I like to paint... Some of SIA's flowers come scented. You get to choose scented or unscented... I caught this SIA Parisien sales girl outside grabbing a ciggie...mustn't give les fleurs a bad scent!

18 comments:

Love that last photo, Carol! Fun. Your glass vase and flower are magnificent! You really captured the refraction there and it's glorious. Lovely, simple, elegant! You can go back to SIA any time in my opinion, and I'll be quite happy!

Well I was fooled. wow those are fabulous fakes. I love the Peonies you got quite frankly. They always remind me of Roses. And your painting is charming. I am loving the letters in with your paintings. Almost like someone has set it down on the table to savor it for awhile before reading it with a cup of tea she is fixing. :)

I love the intimacy of these lettres and fleurs. It is not a simple thing to paint that glass and water...might be the influence of the Maine shore and the mists. Whatever it is, it is lovely. Like love letters from Paris.

Finally, I know why I have never been to Paris: it is my karma. When I was in college, my mother decorated with plastic flowers...this would be waaay back in the 60's when plastic flowers had all the subtlety of concrete blocks. Every time I came home, I took them out of the vases and hid them. And so it is that karma is keeping me away from the home of the best damn imitation flowers I've ever seen!

J'adore SIA beaucoup and so glad I caught that you blogged it encore...So love this rose in glass watercolor, but cant afford to send you to Paris dear Carol...wish that I couldbuy many, many of your images to get you on your way..Can't afford to go home to Paris myself...

Paris Letters

♥carol gillott♥

l'Ile Saint Louis, Paris, Ile de France, France

Hi I'm Carol Gillott,
My Mom taught me watercolors at 5. I'm still at it, now tripping over cobblestones, living in a 6th-floor garret on l'Ile Saint-Louis, Paris. Read Parisbreakfast with a hot chocolate and croissant.
I paint Paris breakfasts.